


End of the Rope

by liberallesbian37



Series: Project Team Beta's 2013 Writing Challenge [30]
Category: Grey's Anatomy
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-08-09
Updated: 2013-08-09
Packaged: 2017-12-22 22:29:25
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,010
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/918758
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/liberallesbian37/pseuds/liberallesbian37
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>An insight into the past events of Alex Karev's life that made him who he is today.</p>
            </blockquote>





	End of the Rope

**Author's Note:**

> Challenge Number/Title: 30/Chance  
> Date Posted: 8/9/13  
> Fandom: Grey's Anatomy  
> Rating: T+  
> Genre: Canon-ish.   
> Content Descriptors: Mentions of abuse  
> Character Pairing: Mentions of Alex's past relationships with Izzie, Lexie, Addison, and Rebecca.

                Eight year old Alex Karev picked up another empty beer bottle from the floor. It was the eighth one that day. He didn’t know exactly what the bottles were, but he knew exactly what the bottles meant. Alex had learned when he was six years old that every empty glass bottle meant an angrier and angrier Jack Karev. On any given day, Alex was likely to pick up four to six bottles. If he didn’t pick them up, his father was prone to throwing them at him.

                “Get me another beer, boy!” Jack yelled. Alex scampered into the kitchen and opened the refrigerator, panic filling his body. He was almost positive there wasn’t any beer left. He was right.

                “Dad… There’s none…There’s, there’s n-none left,” Alex stammered. Jack lifted himself drunkenly off the couch and grabbed Alex by the collar of his shirt.

                “What did you say, boy?” he asked in a low, threatening voice. Alex shrunk back.

                “There’s none left,” he repeated quickly.

                “I HEARD YOU!” Jack yelled, raising his fist. It collided with Alex’s stomach and he fell backwards onto the floor, hitting his head on the dirty coffee table. Alex yelped in pain and Jack kicked him in the stomach.

                The last thing he remembered was his father’s angry face.

\--

                Richard Webber was the first man he ever really respected. At twenty-seven years old, he’d screwed up more times than he could count. And this was another screw up to add to his list.

                “I failed my medical boards?” Alex repeated in a whisper, holding the envelope containing his results.

                “Yes,” Richard said. Alex closed his eyes and took a deep breath.

                “So what happens now?” he asked. Richard put his hand on the intern’s shoulder.

                “You study and you take them again,” Richard said gently. Alex looked down at the floor before glancing up at his boss.

                “And if I don’t pass again?” he wondered aloud. Richard sighed and removed his hand.

                “If you fail again you will no longer be a surgical intern at Seattle Grace Hospital,” he said, and started to walk away. He stopped suddenly, but didn’t turn around.

                “Karev. You can do it.” Without saying anything else, he left.

                Alex stared at the back of Richard’s white lab coat. For the first time in his life, Alex Karev felt like there was someone in his corner. There was someone rooting for him. Richard Webber had been chief of surgery for years. He’d seen interns come and go. He’d even told them that most of them wouldn’t make it. And Alex knew that Meredith Grey was Webber’s golden intern, Yang was clearly the best, and even O’Malley had done the thing with the heart in the elevator. The man clearly had his hands full with interns he cared about, yet for some unknown reason Richard Webber cared about him, Alex Karev.

                And he’d be damned if he ever forgot it.

\--

                “Karev! You’re on my service!”

                Alex groaned and glared at the redhead.

                “Why? You hate me, remember? I got you sued,” he reminded her. Addison Montgomery Shepherd raised her eyebrows.

                “Are you questioning your attending? Because I could write you up. And I really, _really_ don’t think you want that, do you?” she asked, studying a patient file.

                “Fine. Whatever. I’ll be on your stupid gyny squad. It’s not like I have anything better to do or anything,” he muttered sarcastically.

                Addison stopped looking at her chart and turned her gaze to him instead.

                “Yeah, fine. You will be on my stupid gyny squad. Except I don’t think it’s very stupid. I think it’s the most important job in the entire hospital. And do you know why? Because none of them would be there without the doctors and nurses who bring them into the world. We are the ones who bring them into the world. So think of that the next time you think you have something better to do,” she snapped, handing him the file.

                “And Alex? I don’t hate you. I think you acted stupid. I think you were mad at me and disagreed with me and thought that that gave you the right to blatantly disobey my orders. And that won’t happen again, but not because you’re not working with me. You have a gift, Karev. I wish you’d see it.”

\--

                Alex Karev was thirty years old, married, and alone. In love with a woman who left him for no reason. In love with a woman he’d married because she was going to die and she deserved the perfect wedding. In love with a woman he never would have given up on, because he didn’t just marry her because she was dying. He’d married her because he loved her. No matter what everyone else thought, the marriage wasn’t just a gift to placate a dying woman. He would have married her anyway, but neither of them would have initiated it. If the woman he loved hadn’t gotten sick, they never would have gotten married, and maybe she wouldn’t have left.

                Instead, he was alone.

\--

                At thirty-five years old, Alex Karev is ready to give up. He’s haunted by a mother who was too far gone to take care of her children. Haunted by a father who solved problems with alcohol and his fists. Everyday he’s haunted by the failed relationships of his past: the Jane Doe he tried so hard to fix, the redhead whose heart he’d crushed, the wife he’d told to never come back, the girl he’d given up on after the most traumatic event of her life. Gone, gone, gone, dead. A trail of broken hearts that makes him want to screw interns and never fall in love again. He’d think of them and feel lower than his father ever made him feel. Until he meets her.

                “Alex! I know you’re afraid! I know you think I’m crazy and maybe I am, but so are you! I’m taking a chance on you, and I really wish you’d take a chance on me too.”

                So he does. 


End file.
